MARA Sells 13,597 Bitcoin at $81,039 to Retire $750M in Loans

MARA Holdings moved 13,597 bitcoin after the third quarter closed. The block fetched roughly $1.1 billion at an average of $81,039 a coin. About $750 million of the proceeds went straight to retiring every bitcoin-backed term loan on the book.

That's a 40% haircut to a treasury that stood at 34,012 BTC on September 30. Repaying the debt freed 17,477 coins that had been pledged as collateral. Less than 5% of holdings now sit loaned or pledged. Net the math out and MARA is sitting on roughly 20,400 BTC before counting anything mined since.

The company told shareholders this is a program, not a one-off. It intends to keep selling bitcoin to build cash for AI infrastructure, to satisfy puts on convertible notes exercisable next year, and for potential share repurchases. The board already authorized up to $500 million of common stock buybacks after quarter-end.

Now look at the underlying business. Revenue fell 35% to $164.2 million from $252.4 million a year earlier. The $632.1 million of net income came almost entirely from an $885.3 million fair value gain on digital assets, not from mining. Energized hashrate climbed 18% to 71.2 EH/s and blocks won rose 2% to 644. Purchased energy cost per coin at owned sites edged up to $39,674 from $39,235. Margin compression, structurally. Not speculation. Arithmetic.

The balance sheet work is real. MARA has cut total debt by $1.4 billion year to date, a 37% reduction. It closed September with $946.5 million in cash and about $3.8 billion across cash and bitcoin combined. And whoever ran that sale block picked a solid window, clearing $6,800 a coin above the roughly $74,200 spot print this week.

Here's the uncomfortable part. MARA, Riot, Hut 8, Keel, Core Scientific. Every large miner that spent 2021 through 2024 telling investors bitcoin was the balance sheet is now converting that balance sheet into power contracts, GPUs and leases. Long Ridge cleared FERC at 485 MW. Matagorda County adds rights to 2 GW of capacity in Texas. Exaion signed a four-year, $79 million GPU-as-a-service contract with its first U.S. customer. Two data center leases are targeted before year-end, though management flags that timing could slip into next year.

Miners selling into strength isn't capitulation. It's rotation. Watch the next treasury disclosure from any of them, because the marginal seller of bitcoin into 2026 is now a corporation funding a power business.